Someone has created adblock for real life

Adverts are one of those things in life that we have to live with, because they’re everywhere and they pay, or subsidise, the many services that we use. Online we can get around that with adblock software, and someone has managed to develop it for real life.

It’s called ‘Brand Killer‘ and it’s a custom head-mounted display created by a group of students for the PennApps hackathon. The idea is to try and make people “blind to the excesses of corporate branding” in a very literal sense.

The headset itself is a combination of a camera, a pair of goggles, a 7-inch display, and some hardware trickery. When you put it on, it uses real-time image processing to identify and blur any brands or logos that come into view — effectively blocking it from view.

At the moment the headset looks very much like a mismash of different components, but in the grand scheme of things the hardware is irrelevant. The fact that the software works in real time is what’s exciting. Imagine if you have a pair of augmented reality glasses, like Microsoft’s Hololens, which could blur out adverts for you?